Passing St Lucia
09 August 2012 | 14 00.78'N:61 03.05'W
Gary
We left our Martinique anchorage this morning just after 9am and headed south. While originally headed to go along the east/ocean side of St Lucia & St Vincent, the wind wasn't cooperating, so we headed for the west side of the islands instead. We are currently (3:30pm) coming up on The Pitons, which are towards the south end of St Lucia. Our goal is to sail through the night to arrive at Grenada tomorrow sometime.
The winds are good - we've had the sails up and been making good speed all the way. Although being on the west side of the islands means the winds drop regularly due the the mountains blocking it. However, the seas are MUCH calmer when behind an island.
We did have a bit of a problem earlier today. Margi noticed that the starboard engine was slinging water off the drive belt. When I checked it out, it appeared as though the raw water pump (pumping sae water through the heat exchanger to cool the engine coolant) was leaking from the shaft. Since we had a spare, I was able to pull the old pump off and put a new one on. I should be able to rebuild the old one once we get settled in Grenada. It was lucky Margi spotted this when she did as I was able to do all the work in bright daylight and calm seas since we were passing St Lucia at the time.
Picture is of The Pitons - towards the south end of St Lucia and supposedly a beautiful anchorage